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Boxes have been unpacked, stock has been displayed and shelves have been re-merchandised. Hard to believe, it’s that time of year again…

Christmas is such an important time of year to a small business like ours; more than ever in these unpredictable times! Therefore it’s vitally important to give ourselves the best chance for a good season.

We ordered a lot of our Christmas stock months ago (some of it in January and February) so we always get a little anxious when it arrives, and we start to unpack it. Is it as nice as we thought? Have the collections worked together as well as we planned? And, has what we ordered, actually turned up. Being a small retailer, sometimes what we order isn’t always what we get. The bulk of a wholesaler/makers stock can be swallowed up by much larger retailers, with what’s left, served out to the small independents. Leaving us with a diluted collection!

Anyway – all our fears were forgotten this year. In fact most of the stock we ordered was nicer than we remembered. And the things we thought wouldn’t arrive – did. Result!

So, with just over a month to go, we thought we’d take some photos of Phase 1 – and show you what we’ve been up to. We’re pretty chuffed with how the shop is looking, so we thought we’d share it with you. Hope you like it too!

Every year we sell more and more of the beautiful decorations from Walther & Co in Denmark (probably best known for their little house lanterns) They are becoming quite the collector’s items. People come back year after year to see what’s been added to the collection…We’re open everyday now until Christmas (open Sundays 12-4pm) so do pop in and say hello if you’re near!

When we opened our first shop, back in 1999, the trend for vintage lettering and typography had just started in the world of interiors and styling. Around that time, we chanced upon a complete tray of wooden letterpress at an auction…and discovered how decorative they were; and how it made great wall art. In fact that letterpress tray was one of the first things we ever sold!
We’ve now been selling letters, old and new, for over 15 years; sourcing vintage and salvaged letters that would originally have adorned the fronts of shops and factories etc.
We even made our own for a few years!

As with most trends, fashions come and go, and there was a point when you couldn’t open an interiors magazine, or look online without seeing an interior that had either an old, single letter, carefully ‘placed’ and propped up – or a word spelled out in random types/sized fonts. Whilst some would say they have been over-used and have had their day. We still love them. But then we’ve never paid much attention to trends.

These ones are in the shop right now…Visitors to our shops will be familiar with the different ranges of
letters that we stock. But it has to be said, these mini metal script letters, that we’ve just added online, are probably our current favourites..Also available, are our best selling larger metal letters that we’ve been selling for sometime now. Loosely based on Times New Roman, they can be mixed and matched with the script letters. These ones are also handmade and in random colours…

We thought you might like to see our new Christmas window display. We’re really rather pleased with it…..Some of the regular visits to our site (and this blog!) and various social media, may have noticed that we haven’t been very active in this last few months, Here’s a quick update on our year…We’ve actually been incredibly busy behind the scenes, setting ourselves up for the future with a new integrated till/ epos system and a better functioning website, that will be updated regularly!! There will also be some new things happening with the website over the next few months so we’ll keep you updated…. It’s actually been a year of ups and downs. The loss of a close family member to cancer in the first half of the year was difficult to say the least. That tends to put things into perspective. We’ve also had challenges with our website, stemming from unforeseen incompatibility issues, that have caused a lot of work – but we’ve also been shown the most incredible generosity of spirit (and time!) by certain people. One step back – two steps forward and all that…. Encouragingly though, our business in general, has had some incredible recognition from across the globe – so we must be doing something right!Anyway, we’re getting back on track and we’ve been busy getting the shops ready for Christmas. They are now jam packed with seasonal stock, gifts, decorations and inspiration. We’re taking new product shots as we speak, so new stock will also be added to the website this week.

attic by night……And by the way, in case you are wondering – the mystical figures in the window are called Santos dolls. We bought them in New York last year. They are replicas of figurines found in churches and holy places in South America (and parts of Europe) in the 17th and 18th century. Not for sale i’m afraid, display only – sorry!

Here’s a few things we’ve been working on recently in the attic workshop – and now for sale in the shop……here.We’ve been sourcing, restoring and refinishing utilitarian, vintage furniture since we started in 1999. We do it all in-house from start to finish – hand-stripping, hand-finishing and occasionally repainting.

1950’s Steel Double pedestal desk with new glass…..

Sometimes, all a piece needs is a bit of TLC, or just a clean and polish!

!930’s oak roll top desk….

There’s an immense feeling of satisfaction, when we change something that is ready for the scrap yard (in some people’s eyes) having spent many hours working on it, and turning it into something, that generally results in comments in the shop, such as “Where do you get all this stuff”. Well, that would be telling wouldn’t it…..

Some of you may notice that is a holding page at our main website urls – http://www.discoverattic.com & co.uk. Well, that’s because for the past few months we’ve been working on a brand spanking shiney, sparkly new buy online website (actually it’s not sparkly – we don’t really do sparkly. Or shiney!) Anyway, we’re very excited about it and very proud too, it’s looking fantastic and totally reflects what we’re about. We’ve been working with Shine Marketing (www.shinemarketing.com) who are also based in Hampton Hill. A great bunch of guys with their collective finger on the e-commerce pulse. It’ll be a few days before the new website goes live, so bear with us, it won’t be long. But definitely worth waiting for……

Hopefully everyone is fully refreshed after Christmas! It’s already the middle of January and we’re pretty much back in the swing of it now and getting ready for the buying season ahead. Over the next few weeks we have trips/trade shows in New York, Paris & London (only up the road i know, but still, it is London!) Birmingham for a couple of days too….. So, loads of goodies to tempt you with over the next few months. Keep checking in here, we’ll keep you posted about new collections as we get them in! In the meantime, here’s a few new vintage pieces we’ve just finished & ready for sale!

Welcome to the attic. blog

This is where you'll find news, views, vistas and thoughts, and anything that inspires us as people and as a business.
Also we'll be posting information about new products and merchandise that's new in to our shops.
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